Allies of Krita
by Axzem
Summary: What happens when the game is no longer just a game? When players start disappearing, a ragtag investigation team attempts to unravel the mystery. Notice: It's over. I've abandoned this story, and, in response to feedback, posted a summary of the rest.
1. Prologue: A Hero Is Registered

_Her eyes beheld the silent void  
The Maple Mother shed a tear  
For though her Light had been deployed  
No sign of Life had yet appeared.  
--_Maple History Book, volume one

Prologue – A Hero Is Registered (SHOKI)

"It's called MapleStory. You'll like it, I _swear_ you will."

I sighed heavily. I wasn't very keen on trying this weird-looking MMORPG, but Theo always has had his way of convincing me. I guess it's hard for me to say no to him. Still, step one of the ritual dance was always to play stubborn.

"I dunno. It doesn't really look like my kinda thing. Too kiddish."

Step two was a logical retort.

"C'mon, you know that an MMO game isn't defined by its art style. It's the people who play it."

Step three was a weakening resolve.

"Er… well… still, I don't…"

And step four was a blatant appeal to emotion.

"And besides, don't you want to be able to hang out and have fun with me after I move away?"

I always fell for it at step four.

So, there I was. Playing this game that my best friend since grade school had convinced me to play. Who knows, I thought. It could be fun. And it certainly wouldn't hurt to spend more time with him now that he was moving away.

I'd always worried that his graduation would make us grow apart, but I hadn't counted on him growing as far apart as New York. Some elite college, I hadn't bothered to memorize the name yet. All that really mattered to me was that my best friend would be on the other side of the country, while I'd be enduring another year of high school. Maybe this game wasn't such a bad thing after all.

I logged in and picked a server. Bera, that was the one that Theo told me to go to. How could anyone tell the difference? Each one had its own name and emblem, but they all seemed the same to me.

The next step was to make my character. Blond, disheveled hair, like mine in real life. Well, really, it's more of a dirty blond, but the selection wasn't exactly impressive. Theo had told me that equipment wasn't as important, because I wouldn't be sticking with it for long. So, I went with a gray shirt, cotton shorts, sandals, and a sword.

Last element was the name. I typed in the name that I had come up with in advance and given to Theo.

"Shoki."

Thankfully, the name wasn't taken. I rolled my stats, then began the game.

The first area of Maple Island was fairly unremarkable in and of itself; a grassy area, a few platformer-style ledges, and a generic NPC standing on a raised platform. I waited for a moment, and then a line of green text appeared in the chat box.

**TedXIII)) Todd? That you?**

Right on time. I tried to remember his instructions. Press H, then hit "OK"…

**TedXIII(( ****Theo?**

**TedXIII)) Good, took you long enough. So, what do you think so far?**

**TedXIII(( It's okay, I guess. But I haven't actually PLAYED any yet.**

**TedXIII)) Right, sorry. I'll meet you in Lith Harbor. Take your time.**

**TedXIII)) But try and be at least level 8 before you leave Maple Island.**

Level 8. Seemed simple enough. So, I started with the tutorial.

I found I was having a little fun with the game, in spite of myself. The beginner's quests were a bit dull, but I loved that satisfying feeling that came with leveling up.

It was in the middle of the hunt for the elusive Orange Mushroom that things really started getting interesting, though. I was in a hidden map, looking for more of the things to fight. I engaged one of them, tossing snail shells at it to whittle down its HP.

However, I'd made a minor miscalculation.

"Crap. Out of snail shells."

Not a problem, I thought. I'll just fight the thing. Couldn't be that tough.

It wasn't long before it had me out of potions and cornered on a rope.

I'd die if I dropped down, but the rope didn't lead anywhere. So, really, I was screwed. I started typing a message to Theo again. "Theo, I think I've got a little prob--"

Suddenly, a red shell flew from off-screen and struck the mushroom, killing it.

"You looked like you could use a little help."

The owner of the shell, and the one who had addressed me, was a character called "EllaKnight". She had a head of messy black hair, squinty eyes, a standard beginner outfit, and a hand-axe for a weapon. I noticed that she was wearing a red headband too, lucky thing.

"Thanks," I said. "I was out of potions."

"Oh, here," she said. She dropped some red potions and smiled. It was a facial expression mapped to the F2 key, a big, anime-styled smile that generally exuded an aura of friendliness and warm-heartedness. Not that I needed a facial expression to tell that I was dealing with a very friendly individual.

I picked them up and returned the smile. "Thanks. You're a life-saver, seriously."

"No problem," she said, F2ing again. "So, I take it you're doing the Orange Mushroom quest for Mai?"

"Yeah. I've got six left."

"Three. Maybe I'll hang out here in case you need saving again."

"Har har, aren't you hilarious."

Once we finished, we made our way back to the NPC Mai together. "So, what do you think of the game so far?" Ella asked me.

"It's pretty fun, I guess."

"I think so too," she said, F2ing. "So, how did you hear about the game?"

"From my friend Theo. He's moving to New York next month, and he wanted us to have a way to hang out and stuff. I'm meeting him in some place called Lith Harbor once I get off this island."

"Oh, that's the first town you see in Victoria. You can't miss it," she said. "I started playing because my boyfriend's a geek for this game. I've watched him play it a lot, so I know quite a bit about the game already." Cool. So, we both had experts to help us on our way. I guess we were a lot luckier than most.

Once all the quests were finished, it was time for us to head on our way. We payed the 150-meso fare, and took the ship to Victoria.

"Nice," I said as I surveyed the area. Lith Harbor was a very clean, pretty port town with a picturesque ocean backdrop and soft, relaxing background music. Beginners and high-levels alike wandered around, and it was filled with typical sailor/pirate NPCs.

"Oh, looks like I have to go," Ella said. "It was nice meeting you, Shoki."

"Yeah, you too."

A musical little sound effect went off and an alert appeared on the bottom of the screen. "Buddy request from EllaKnight." I accepted it.

"See ya." We exchanged F2s, and she left.

OK, with that, it was time to look for Theo. I called up Whisper mode again and typed a message.

**TedXIII(( OK, I'm here. Where are you?**

His reply was almost instant.

**TedXIII)) Oh, sweet. Meet me by the NPC called "Mr. Kim."**

After a little bit of wandering, I found him. His avatar was impressive, to say the least. He wore a brown bucket hat, a black hooded vest, and a pair of khaki cargo pants. There was also a pair of earrings that looked like skulls, some unidentified gloves, and what looked like a tiger's tail. But the most impressive thing about him was the weapon he wielded. It was a huge spear with a wavy red blade at the end (I later found out that it was called "Serpent's Tongue"). His character's name was, of course, TedXIII.

He F2ed when he saw me. "Dude, you made it!"

Another alert appeared. "Buddy request from TedXIII." Theo never was one to waste time. I accepted, naturally.

"So, out with it! What do you think?"

"It's… pretty fun. I think I can stand playing this game."

He F2ed. "Awesome. So, have you decided on a job yet?"

That was a bit of a tougher question. "Um… I'm thinking Magician."

"Sweet. You ought to head to Ellinia then. C'mon, I'll escort you there personally." Such a gentleman, that guy. We both F2ed.

"Oh, by the way," he said. "Check the Cash Shop. There's a little present for you."

I checked. It seemed there was a small amount of NX cash on my account.

"Thought you could use a little head start. Use it to get a hair coupon or something, you deserve it."

And then we set off for Ellinia in high spirits. And so began my seemingly innocent career on MapleStory.

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Author's note: I had to use parentheses for the whisper text because this site is weird and won't let me use greater than and less than entities. Bah.

Also, you can visit my website under the "notebook" section to see character info and such.

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	2. Whose Work This Is I Think I Know

_But then one tear thence fell to earth,  
And struck its surface silently.  
Then all were witness to the birth  
Of the Mother Maple tree._  
--Maple History Book, volume one

Chapter 1 – Whose Work This Is I Think I Know (BAGUETTE)

_Two months later_

This was a problem.

In fact, that is probably a good candidate for understatement of the century. If we as a collective administration didn't figure out a solution, Maple Global was DOA.

It had been hardly a month since I began my training as a MapleStory GM, and already I was witness to the crisis of the century. I couldn't have asked for a better test of my skills, but it was stressful enough to make one toy with the finer points of jumping off a building.

It's funny how something as simple as a new dungeon could bring the game to its knees. The catch, however, was that Graemalkin Tower was not planned. It wasn't designed by Wizet programmers, it wasn't endorsed or supported by Nexon, it wasn't advertised, it wasn't expected, and it just plain _wasn't supposed to be there._ The fact that an entire _dungeon_ could just slip itself on past everyone was more than enough to make waves within the company.

The going theory was that it had piggybacked itself onto the last patch, and had remained dormant until the hacker that put it there called it up again. But how could your everyday hacker do something like _that_? The simple answer was that this was in no way your everyday hacker. This hacker was dedicated, this hacker was skilled, and moreover, this hacker was dangerous.

The first executive decision made when the dungeon appeared was an emergency patch. The dungeon was located within the datafile Data.wz and deleted, then the client was patched with the Graemalkin-Tower-free datafile. The fact that it sprang right back up as if nothing had happened was what inspired the theory that this anonymous hacker had broken into Wizet's automated patching system. Clearly not your average godmoder.

So where did I, 25-year-old Michelle DeVaugne, Wizet employee and fledgling GM, figure into all of this?

My phone rang. "Hello?" I answered.

"Hey Mich."

"Oh, hi, Kit."

"How goes your rounds today? Spot anyone interesting in that dungeon?"

"No, not yet. You?"

"Not a one."

I chuckled. "I doubt the hacker that made this place would risk hanging around inside it. This whole thing is a waste of time; we should be trying to get RID of the thing rather than patrolling it."

"Yeah," Kit said with a sympathetic tone, "But they're doing all they can. In fact, it seems we have a primary suspect."

This was new. "Oh? Tell me more."

"Yeah. Seems it's a character by the name of 'Grae'. There's pretty much no doubt he's a hacker, even though nobody's caught him at anything. Plus, he's the guildmaster of a guild called 'Graemalkin'. You just _try_ and tell me _that's_ a coincidence."

Interesting. "What's his level and job?"

"Nobody knows. The game crashes when you try to look at his character info."

THAT was unusual. "What about the rankings on the website?"

"Nowhere to be found. As far as the site's concerned, he doesn't exist."

I nodded. "Yeah, sounds like this guy is _definitely_ someone to watch. Has anyone tried banning him yet?"

"Can't be done. Same thing happens with his account information as with his character name. There's no record of him or his account anywhere on the server."

"That's weird."

"Yeah," he said. "Oh, I'd probably better get back to work."

"Yeah, me too. I don't want to be caught idling in this dungeon, it could cost me my job."

"Yeah. I'll let you know if anything new develops."

"You do that."

I went back to the keyboard and took control of my MapleStory avatar. She was a level 50 character I named "Baguette". It's kind of a company in-joke that GMs tend towards food-related character names, and since a lot of my family is from France, I couldn't resist giving my Admin character a name like that.

Her appearance was done in the typically eclectic style of GM avatars. She had short, blue hair with pigtails, a school uniform top and bottom, Japanese-style loose socks, and baby angel wings on her back. Her weapon was a giant spatula, which amused me to no end. I mean, seriously, how can you dislike anyone that walks around whacking things with a giant spatula? It just brings a smile to the face.

I was currently on the fourth floor of Graemalkin Tower. It was an expertly constructed dungeon, which made me wonder at the fact that it was created unprofessionally. If I hadn't been aware already that this was a vagrant area, I'd swear it was official material. The dungeon incorporated monsters from everywhere in the game, and they graded perfectly in difficulty from floor to floor. The floor I was on at the moment was primarily occupied by Zombie Mushrooms and Evil Eyes, and the tileset matched that of the Ant Tunnel.

As I began patrolling the expansive map again, I started to think about what Kit had told me.

"Grae, huh," I said to myself in All Chat mode. The text appeared in the chat box in the trademark blue text of the GMs. That was a habit of mine, saying things aloud in game. It never hurt anything, since nobody would even see the chat while I was in Hide mode, except other GMs.

Another chat appeared in the box, in the typical white of All Chat.

"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear."

I looked up at the minimap. A small red blip had appeared on it while I wasn't looking. That was the color that indicated another player. Any player that appears on the minimap is in range of All Chat mode, which explains why I got a chat from them.

I looked back at the chat box. The chat had come from a character named…

"Grae."

He shouldn't be able to hear me, I thought. Maybe it was just a coincidence that it sounded like he could. But why would he say a thing like that to the air…?

"I see my reputation precedes me. Yes, my dear GM, that is my name."

Well, any doubts were now neatly erased.

"Mind explaining to me how you can hear what I'm saying?"

He landed on the platform I was standing on. "I can see you too, incidentally," he said. "I thought that might pique your interest."

His avatar's skin was very pale, sort of a bluish white. He wore a black trench coat, and his black hair extended almost to the ground. His eyes were concealed by a pair of sunglasses, though his eyebrows tilted inward in an obvious scowl. His bandaged hands carried a Pan Lid shield and Maple Soul Singer, a very formidable weapon that was also difficult to obtain. Predictably, his guild was marked as "Graemalkin", with a red skull emblem.

"Yes, it does," I said. "Mind explaining how?"

A small smirk appeared on his face. "You GMs aren't visible to other players, but that doesn't mean the server doesn't receive information about your position. The information simply isn't broadcast, as it is with normal players. Seeing you is only a matter of coaxing the server into sending that information to me."

He made it sound so simple, but tricking the server into doing something like that would have to be monstrously complex. Who WAS this guy…?

"So, is it true? Are you the one that made this dungeon?"

The smirk reappeared. "As much as I'd like to take credit for this work of art—and it really IS a work of art—doing so might incriminate me. I'm afraid I'm not the one you're looking for."

"Naturally," I said, with an F3 face. It's a look of exasperation; it was stupidly clear that he was lying.

"However," he said, the smirk disappearing again, "I have a message to deliver, to you and your administration, from the real artist."

"I'm listening."

"Graemalkin Tower is just the beginning," he began. "I have much bigger and MUCH better things in store for you all. You can fight back; I would certainly enjoy a good challenge. But do not expect to halt the flow of progress as I bring it about. Changes are coming; and YOU will be the first element dealt with. You are obsolete, and you will be deleted. Good day."

I took a screenshot of his little speech. It was ominous to be certain, but it was vital that I get this information to the rest of the administration.

"Oh, and by the way," he said. "I have a little present for you."

"What's that?" I typed. I hit the enter key, but nothing happened. The text hadn't appeared in the text entry or anything. I realized then that the entire screen was frozen; I was _lagging!_

The screen faded to black and returned to the Login screen. I tried logging in again, but I was immediately disconnected. I exited the game instead.

There were more important things to do for the moment. I attached the screenshot I had taken to an email, wrote up a summary of the encounter, and sent it out to the rest of the administration. I breathed a tired sigh and massaged my temples. The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Michelle?" It was Grant, another fellow GM.

"Hey, Grant," I said, not even bothering to mask the fatigue in my voice.

"I just wanted to see if you'd heard that we have a suspect for the--"

"Yes, I already heard. Check your email. I had a little run-in with the guy."

"Seriously?"

"Yes," I said, "and I think I agree that it's probably him. We can't pin it on him yet, though. Not enough evidence."

"I guess…" he said. "OK, here, I've got the email." He paused as he read the text on the screenshot. "Wow. This is pretty heavy stuff. I'll report it to the higher-ups; you take a little break."

"Thanks," I said. "At least I know I can trust you of all people."

We both hung up. What I needed now was a little nap. I lay down in my bed and closed my eyes. For the moment I was content to forget all about Grae and the tower, and about MapleStory. I just let sleep take me.

But the words floated through my head in my last moments of consciousness. "You are obsolete. You will be deleted."

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Author's note: Whoo! Well, reviews would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it.

Also, be sure to take a look-see at the characters page, under "notebook" on my website. I'll probably be updating it with each chapter.


	3. The Rest was Silence

_The Maple's roots did grow and spread,  
__Mountains, rivers, forests formed  
_'_Till not one inch was dry or dead  
__And Mother Krita wept no more.  
_--Maple History Book, volume one

Chapter 2 – The Rest was Silence (SHOKI)

"So, what's so special about this dungeon?" I asked Theo while training at Orbis Tower.

"Just rumors, mostly," he said. "They say it's the most difficult dungeon that's ever appeared in the game. Apparently even the top pros have gone in there and never come out."

I was talking to Theo through Buddy chat, which is to say that he wasn't actually present next to me at the moment. He was talking to me while training in an area around El Nath, which was much closer to his experience level than the sentinels I was fighting.

"But if they died in there, wouldn't they have respawned outside of it?"

"Probably," he said, "but maybe not. For all we know, there could be a whole other town in there for them to respawn in, like with Sleepywood in the Victoria dungeon. There's no way to know because there's no official information on it."

"What, you mean Wizet didn't take the opportunity to advertise the crap out of their new dungeon?"

"Nope. All it is is a random portal in Orbis Cloud Park. If it weren't for a few random dorks with S-Megas, I bet nobody would have even found out about it."

It was an interesting idea, I had to admit. A secret, ultra-hard dungeon for all the hardcore players to find and best; Wizet had outdone itself with this one. It was a show of clever subtlety that I hadn't thought them capable of.

"Ugh," Theo said. "I just quit my guild."

"Why?" I asked. I'd never been in a guild; I couldn't understand why someone would want to quit theirs.

"Eh. Nobody's ever on, and the Guild Master's a jerk anyways," he answered.

I hadn't thought about that. I guess there really was an art to picking the right guild.

"Maybe I'll make my own," he mused. "Would you be interested in joining?"

"Yeah," I said. "That'd be great." That was an outright lie—it would have been one of the coolest things that had happened to me in this game. A guild wasn't just a group of friends; as childish as it sounds, it was a status symbol within Maplestory. And not only that, but it would be a guild run by Theo; I couldn't imagine anything cooler happening to me.

After I had finished some quests and gained a fair chunk of EXP, I decided to head back to Victoria. All this time, and I was still only a level 36 Ice/Lightning Wizard; I'd spent a lot of the first month hanging out with Theo in real life before he left, and now that school had started I had homework to worry about. Still, I managed to find time for the game in between it all.

As soon as I arrived in Ellinia, I was greeted by a familiar face.

"Hey, Shoki! What's up?" Ella said through All chat.

By now she was a level 37 Page, with typical 30+ Warrior armor and a Cutlass (mysteriously spelled "Cutlus" in-game) as a weapon. Her hair was now done up in a ponytail; I imagine her boyfriend lent her some NX cash to change it with, like Theo had done for me. I had picked the "Metro" style, and then gotten a Transparent Hat to mask over the Blue Matty I was wearing; she'd probably done something similar, since she wasn't wearing any of the helmets typical of the warrior class.

"Hey, Ella," I said with an F2.

"I kinda came here looking for you," she said.

"Why's that?"

"Well," she said, "I wanted to introduce you to someone." She turned towards a character standing behind her that I hadn't noticed before. "This is Derek, my boyfriend."

Derek's avatar was pretty NX-heavy, about as much as Theo's. He had a black Vanillaboy hairdo, almond eyes, a Dark Rider top, Torn Jeans, Black snowshoes and a Black Napoleon cape. He carried a Korean Fan weapon. His character name was "DerX", which I suppose was a play on his real name.

"Nice to meet you," I said with a smile.

"Same," he said, returning the smile.

Funny, I thought. All this time being Ella's friend, and I _hadn't_ met him. From what I heard from her, he tended to be the type to keep to himself. I guess I could understand that; I was the shy type too, and after a few months my buddy list was only composed of a couple people.

"Look, I'm sorry Ella, but I have to go. I'm meeting up with some friends at El Nath, and the ship's going to be leaving soon."

"OK," she said. "Have fun."

He headed off in the other direction, pausing to buy a ticket. He turned back for a second, and a small line of text appeared in my chat box: _DerX has raised Shoki's level of fame._ We exchanged smiles, and he left.

"So, you wanna go and train some?" Ella said.

"Sure," I answered with a smile. "How about the Ant Tunnel?"

"Sounds good," she said. We started heading off through Ellinia.

**DerX))Hey, Shoki?**

The green whisper text appeared so suddenly as to make me jump, and stop in-game. Ella turned around to look.

**DerX((Yeah?  
****DerX))I was wondering.  
****DerX))Would you be interested in joining a guild?**

Hm. Was DerX in a guild? I didn't remember seeing one, but I guess I wasn't paying enough attention.

**DerX((Well… My friend was talking about making a guild earlier.  
****DerX((So I probably shouldn't.**

There was a brief pause.

**DerX))OK, Thanks anyways.  
****DerX(( Same.**

I looked back up and noticed that Ella was probably wondering about the holdup. I thought of a way to change the subject and switched into Buddy Chat mode.

"So, have you heard about this new dungeon?"

"Who hasn't?" she said. We started walking again. "I swear, the best way to get everybody talking about something is to try and keep it secret."

It was true. I had to wonder if everybody would be so abuzz about Graemalkin Tower if there wasn't such an air of secrecy about it. Once again, it was a sort of cleverness I hadn't expected from Wizet.

"Hey guys," Theo chimed in. He had stayed in Ossyria when I returned to Victoria, but he had both of us on his buddy list, so he could hear and add to our conversation. "I'm actually gonna go and check it out."

We both F6ed in surprise. "You sure?" I said.

"Yeah," he said. "I kinda want to see what the buzz is all about. If it's as hard as it sounds, it ought to be kind of fun."

"Well, good luck!" Ella said.

"Thanks," he said. "I'll tell you guys how it goes afterwards."

We both F3ed. "Any bets on how long he'll last?" Ella said in All Chat mode.

-

* * *

-

It was after Ella and I had left and gone to the Ant Tunnel to train together that things started to get interesting. We had gone as deep as the Evil Eye cave in our training, and we were talking idly. 

"So, what's the story with Theo anyways? You said a while ago that he was moving away."

"Yeah," I answered. "He moved to go to college in New York."

"Aw, that sucks," she said with a sad face—an F4. "What about you?"

"I'm a senior in High School," I answered. "This is the first year we haven't gone to the same school… like, ever."

"Oh, hey, so am I!" she said with an F2. "I've been SWAMPED with homework."

"Me too," I said. "It's hard to find time for the game anymore."

"Yeah. So, what classes are you taking?"

I was about to type a response when something on the screen caught my eye. There was a yellow notice scrolling across the top of the screen.

"**Attention Maplers: The dungeon Graemalkin Tower is hereby declared off-limits. Anyone entering will be considered a hacker, and will be treated as such. Users are encouraged to report people entering the dungeon as they would hackers. Adherence will be strictly enforced. Thank you, and happy Mapling."**

There was a moment of silence between the two of us as the message finished scrolling across the screen.

"What the--" I started. "Now they're trying to keep people out of their own dungeon!?"

"I don't know," she said. "You heard Theo, there wasn't any news about it on the website. Maybe they didn't make it?"

"If not them, then WHO?" I said, incredulously. "I don't think an entire DUNGEON could get into the game without them knowing."

"Well, I don't know," she said, "but apparently SOMETHING isn't right with it."

That was true. If they were trying to keep people out, there must have been some reason behind it. I was just glad that none of us had tried to—

"Oh, crap! Theo!"

I switched into Buddy Chat mode.

"Theo, did you see that notice?"

"Yeah," he said. "There's nothing I can do now, though. I'm too deep in."

"What about return scrolls? There must be SOMETHING!"

There was a pause. "No. None of them work, not even the Nearest Town scrolls. They're all disabled."

Crap. Crap crap crap. This wasn't what I needed.

"What if you died? You might respawn outside!"

Another pause.

"No. I'm at 98. I'm not dropping any EXP at this point."

I couldn't believe it. "Just forget about your damned EXP and get out of there! If you don't, you'll--" I ran out of room in the text entry and decided to just send the message as is.

"Shoki," Ella said in All Chat mode. "Let him handle it, he'll be fine."

"But--" I said. "--what if he…"

"Have some faith in him. He'll be FINE."

I paused. I guess she was right; I was being a bit of a worrywart. Still, I couldn't help but be concerned.

I typed "/find TedXIII" in the text entry. The text appeared: "_TedXIII is currently at Graemalkin Tower: Sanctuary._"

We continued our training in an uneasy silence. The notice continued ominously scrolling across the screen. After a time, Super Megaphone reports started rolling in about people attempting to enter the dungeon. Others bragged about how deep they had gotten and flipped the verbal bird to the people doing the reporting. Still others completely ignored the events and went on with their normal business; but no matter what was said, there was a prevailing atmosphere of uneasiness. Nobody was unaffected.

I did another search in spite of myself. "_TedXIII is currently at Graemalkin Tower: Gorge._"

More time went by. Eventually, blue GM notices started appearing in the chat box announcing bannings. Many of the names matched the names that had been declared by megaphone. I stopped fighting.

"He'll be fine," Ella reassured me.

"_TedXIII is currently at Graemalkin Tower: Grave._"

"_Ted XIII is currently at Graemalkin Tower: Origin._"

"_TedXIII is currently at Graemalkin Tower: Mine._"

Eventually, Ella spoke up. "I have to go. It's time for dinner."

"Ok. See ya."

She paused for a moment. "You gonna be OK, Shoki?"

I nodded, even though she couldn't see me. "Yeah. I'll be fine."

"OK. See you tomorrow."

Her avatar disappeared.

The wondering was getting nerve-wracking. I decided to talk to Theo.

"Hey. How's it going in there?"

"I think I'm getting close to the bottom," he said. "The monsters are really strong here; I'm pretty much skipping over everything."

"Well, good," I said. "You should be out soon then."

"You're not worrying too hard, are you?" he said. I could picture the knowing smirk on his face.

"No," I said. "Just a little concern between friends. Aren't I allowed that much?"

"Yeah, yeah, calm down," he said.

Another minute went by.

"Oh, I forgot, I was going to tell you something."

"Oh? What?'

After a few seconds, he spoke again. "Oh, hey, I think I made it to the end."

"OK, Good," I said. "Now get out of there."

There wasn't any response.

"Hello?"

Still, nothing.

I tried talking to him again and again, but still nothing happened. I searched for him, and I got the result: "_TedXIII is currently at Graemalkin Tower: Root of Life._" He was still there, then.

Several more minutes went by. His position didn't change.

"Theo, what the hell is going on in there?" I said. It would have been in a shout if it were verbal. As it was I think I nearly broke the keyboard.

Finally, a response appeared:

**TedXIII)) Todd?**

"Theo, what's going--" I began. I switched to Whisper mode.

**TedXIII((Theo, what's going on in there?  
****TedXIII))Todd, I'm sorry. This is it.  
****TedXIII((What do you mean? Is there a GM in there?  
****TedXIII)) No. Todd, I want you to listen to me.  
****TedXIII((What? What is it?  
****TedXIII))Todd, whatever you do…**

**-**

**TedXIII))DON'T come looking for me.**

**-**

I tried to process what he was saying. It took several seconds for me to realize that it didn't make any sense at all.

**TedXIII((What do you mean by THAT?  
**_**Unable to find "TedXIII".**_

The last line appeared immediately after I sent the message. That's what appeared when a character you tried to find or whisper wasn't online. I tried searching for him and got the same result.

That was it. There was nothing left. Nobody to ask questions to. Nothing to do. Just silence. There wasn't anybody left to help me.

I was alone.

"THEO!?"

Nothing but the silence answered.

--------------------

Author's Note: Ehhh. I don't really like how this chapter turned out. There're a couple important plot points, but really it's not much more than a bridge between events; it feels kind of rushed. Expect better things from the chapters to come.

Also, a note on perspective: it's not going to be alternating on a per-chapter basis, but rather in accordance with the flow of the plot. The next chapter will be from Todd's perspective again, and quite possibly the one after that. However, Todd and Michelle's paths WILL cross before perspective switches to her, so despair not. XD

_Bio for TedXIII (Theo) is now available._


	4. Abandon All Hope

Author's note: Gahh. I'm sorry this chapter took so long. It seems the AoK muse just wasn't with me at first, plus I was busy with finals for a lot of the time. But it's done now, and in fact, to make up for it I've lengthened this chapter with some material I had planned for chapter four, making this the longest chapter yet. I hope you enjoy!

Oh yeah, and ffnet strikes again, making some of the symbols I had put into this chapter dissapear. Just remember, "(a)" is an "at" sign, and ")" stands in for a "greater than" sign. XP

* * *

_The rest of the poem is illegible.  
__I have worked on trying to restore it,  
__But the pages are too damaged, and my  
__interest more lies with what comes after it.  
_--Jay's notes on Maple History Book (vol. 1) 

Chapter 3 – Abandon All Hope (SHOKI)

So, that was it. He was just… gone. Had he been banned? No, he said there weren't any GMs there… Had he been disconnected? Or just logged off? No, what he had said right before he disappeared… I knew him too well, and there was meaning in those words. Something had happened down there.

But what?

That was the million-dollar question. But not one I was in any state to answer. As I stood there in the dank Evil Eye cave, still not quite able to process what had just happened, all that my addled mind could think was: I need to get out of here. _NOW_.

I happened to have a return scroll to Kerning City, so I used it without hesitating.

Not knowing what had happened to Theo would drive me mad, I was sure. What could I do? Should I go in after him and find out? I could have just called him and asked, but the prick had never given me his new phone number. Whatever it was I did, though, I had to do _something_…

As the familiar city setting of Kerning reasserted itself over the dark, depressing lair of Evil Eyes, my mind began to clear. Kerning was a fairly populated area, I reasoned; maybe someone could help me.

I changed channels to channel 2.

The air became filled with digitized voices, hanging in the air above their owners in the middle of town. The small dip in the middle of the city where the entrance to the swamp sat was the usual gathering place for people looking to get into the Kerning Party Quest, but I had learned that it was also—especially in the more populated channels like one and two—a popular gathering place for buyers, sellers, traders, and everything in between. Channel one was by far the most crowded, and if I went there, any call for help would be instantly lost in the torrent of (a) signs that habitually resided there. Channel two was still populated enough to get me what I was looking for, but it lacked the sheer, staggering _numbers_ typical of channel one.

"I need help!" I started. "I'm looking for a group to go into Graemalkin Tower and help me find out what happened to--" I ran out of room in the text entry, then continued, "--my friend. He went missing. Please, I'll even pay you for it." I waited for a little bit, but got no response. "Somebody?"

Still, nothing. I tried repeating my request a few times, each time meeting with about the same degree of success.

It was on my last try that I seemed to finally get someone's attention. A spear-wielding warrior and an assassin stepped forward from the crowd and spoke.

"noob"

"hacker"

They spoke without capitalization or punctuation. Before I could raise my voice to protest, they both defamed me.

"evry1 report & defame shoki hes a hacker!" One of them shouted. Many of the people in the crowd stopped and turned.

"But wait, hold on, I'm not--" I started to type, but then a flurry of defames came my way. The crowd was getting riled up; it didn't matter WHO the two accused of being a hacker, the mob mentality of the group led them all in the same direction. I started to run to escape their assault, making panicked use of my Teleport as I made my way east. A large chunk of the crowd followed, continuing the rush of defames and reports.

Eventually I escaped into the Pharmacy building. I slipped into the basement area in the lower half of the screen and waited with bated breath.

Nobody followed. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Well…

"What _now_?" I wondered aloud. Clearly I wasn't getting any help from _that_ avenue. But what could I do? I could never survive the tower alone, I was sure of that…

Maple had failed me. No; _I_ had failed. Theo had helped me out so much in my short time playing this game… and now that I was in a position to help _him_… I had curled up bruised and beaten in the Pharmacy basement. What a fine lot this was…

"I gather you need some help?" A voice intoned. I looked back up at the scenery.

There was a Bandit standing at the entrance. He was heavily bedecked in cash items; he wore an olive starred beanie on his head with a tuft of green hair sticking out from underneath. A green snowboarder jacket adorned his torso, and ripped jeans complimented on the legs. A small red scar rested right underneath one of his thin, piercing eyes. He wore a Harpy Cape on his back and a Seclusion Wristguard on his left arm. The only thing betraying his level was his dagger; a fascinating red monstrosity dubbed "Dragon's Toenail". I checked his character info; level 40. His name was Lenovix.

I braced myself for a defame and report, but none came. I stopped to think about what he had said.

"Yeah," I answered, "I do."

He smiled. "Why don't you tell me what happened."

So I sat down and recounted the entire ordeal. He remained interested and interjected with comments and questions throughout; he was a pretty good listener, I had to admit. He stood up once I was through.

"What was his name? Your friend, I mean."

"Theo?"

"No," he said. "His IGN. His character's name."

"Oh. TedXIII."

"Okay," he said. "I'll tell my guildmates to keep an eye out for him."

He paused briefly. "You sure do make high-profile friends."

I was slightly taken aback by this. "High-profile?"

"Yeah," He said. "I've heard his name thrown around more than once, I can tell you that. He's the 8x Dragon Knight, right?"

"Yeah," I said. I hadn't really thought of him as high-profile, or, heaven forbid, _famous_, before. The fact that this random stranger had heard of him startled me.

"Okay, then," He continued, suddenly all-business. "Do you have anyone on your buddy list that can help?"

"Nobody's online right now," I said, "But I'm pretty sure EllaKnight would, if no one else."

"Okay, that's three of us then."

Three? "So you WILL help me?"

He raised his eyebrow—F1ed. "Of course I will," he said.

I was elated. My face beamed, in game and out. "Thank you! You have no idea how much this means to me!"

"Trust me," he said. "I do."

-

-

"Okay," he said after a while. "I've gone through my buddy list and guild, but there aren't any takers. This may require drastic measures."

I raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"Such as an S-mega."

That threw me. "But won't you be banned? The GMs are really on edge about this dungeon, and if they know you're going in…"

He smirked. "Don't fret about that. I have an alt account. It's disposable. Just give me a moment, I'll be right back with you."

His avatar blinked out of existence as he logged out. A minute went by, and a red-on-pink Super Megaphone message appeared in the chat box.

"_R) Search party to investigate missing people in Graemalkin Tower. Come to Ch. 2 Kerning Pharmacy."_

Another minute went by, and Lenovix appeared again, suspended in the air above the entrance for a moment before dropping to the ground.

"That ought to do it," he said.

"Okay," I said, tentatively. "What now?"

"Now?" he said. "We wait."

-

-

Time went by.

Eventually, we took to idle conversation. Turned out, his real name was Lee, a 19-year-old college student from the Midwest. It was difficult to wrest any more information than that from him as far as his personal life went, but he made great conversation otherwise.

Eventually the subject rolled around to hacking. "Why is it," I wondered aloud, "that Wizet can't just fix up their game so people can't hack?"

"It's not really that simple," he answered, pensively. "It's too difficult to hold out some hacks without being too invasive on the user, though the programmers are always looking for ways." I guess this made sense. "Besides," he continued, "Running an MMORPG is a full-time job. There are so many things besides hacking that they can't afford to neglect; and everything, including hack prevention, costs money. Money's in short supply for a game like Maple, since they have so many users, but no monthly fees like World of Warcraft and some of the other games out there. Time and money are too scarce to make hack prevention a very easy job."

"M-hm," I said, thinking about this for a moment. "Is that why you have so much NX?"

"That," he said, "Among other things."

Still, time went by.

We were both about to give up and call it a night when two people wandered in.

The first was a Bowman, bedecked in a Dark Legolier, Camo shorts, camping boots, and a green cape. A Cabbie's hat sat astride his head, and he carried a Ryden bow at his side. The second was a Magician, though by looking I couldn't tell what kind she was; she wore a Dark Moonlight, with matching Dark Moon Shoes. A starfish pin adorned her disheveled hair, and she wielded a Maple Staff.

"Hey," the Bowman, Markmann, said. "You guys the ones looking for a Graemalkin Tower party?"

"That'd be us," Lenovix answered. "You interested?"

The bowman paused a moment to scope out the present company. "This all you got?"

"We have one more that'll be available tomorrow," he answered. "Will you have time then?"

"Sure will," the bowman answered.

"And what about your little friend? Is she coming with you?"

The girl, EmiChan, looked startled. A casual glance at her character info revealed that she was a Cleric.

"I am sorry. My English is still very un-practiced," she answered.

"She's visiting from Japan," Markmann explained.

"Ah, wakatta," Lenovix answered. "Nihongo de wa ii yo. Ashita, tomodachi wo sagashi tame ni Graemalkin Tower wo haiterun desu. Emi-san wa isshou ni ikanai no?"

"Ah," EmiChan answered. "Yokatta ne, Nihongo ga dekiru no. Mark-kun mo ikeba, mochiron atashi mo douban suru to omoimasu."

"Yokatta," he answered. "Arigatou, Emi-san."

Suffice it to say, I had _no_ idea what had gone on during the exchange.

"Um. What now?"

Lenovix smiled. "Don't worry, she's coming."

"So, then," Markmann said. "Just us four and one more?"

"Looks like it," Lenovix answered. "It's getting late, and you two are the only ones that responded to my S-Mega. We'll have to make do. So, let's meet up again tomorrow? How about the Ellinia station, around noon?"

"Sounds good," Markmann said. "See you guys then."

The two logged out, leaving me and Lenovix again.

"You said your friend's name was EllaKnight, right?"

"Yeah," I answered.

"Alright," he said. "I'll contact her and bring her up to speed if she comes on before you do. See you tomorrow."

"Okay, good night."

We both logged out, and I proceeded to what would turn out to be a very restless sleep.

The tower, and the Darkness that slept within it, haunted my dreams.

-

* * *

-

The hacker surveyed his surroundings. He was a few floors into the tower, and the room he was currently in was designed to look like the Kerning Subway, with all the typical monsters that resided there. But the important detail was that it lacked all the meddling legit players to report and defame him.

He hated them. Wearing their legitimacy like some kind of _badge_. It was sickening. Anyone with half a brain could tell his was the better way. Why spend all that time leveling pointlessly, when he could do the same in a matter of a few days? It was just a _game_, after all.

Why on earth would he lower himself to actually _playing_ it?

A smirk appeared on his face, and he unleashed a Slash Blast. It simultaneously struck all the enemies on the map.

The trick of it was, from his perspective, all the enemies on the map were standing right in front of him. But any casual observer would swear he was striking enemies on the other side of the area. Not that _they_ mattered for anything.

He released another Slash Blast. And another. And another. He would let his Bot macro take over soon, but there was something gratifying about those first few hits.

He started to prepare the macro, but something rushed across the side of the screen. He stopped for a moment.

That was weird… No monster should have been immune to his vac. But the shadowy something had gone right ahead and done it. How frustrating.

No matter, though. He had a healthy spawn of Wraiths all to himself. He let the macro take over.

Wraiths began falling en masse. Life was good.

Suddenly, the shadowy something rushed across the middle of the screen. It sliced right through his Godmode and dealt damage in seven digits. The hacker died instantly.

Well, THAT was just great, he thought. At least he'd just respawn at the nearest town. He'd give it another go. He clicked OK on the game over window and the screen went black.

-

But he didn't reappear.

-

* * *

-

I woke up and dashed to the computer. Luckily, it was Saturday, so we had plenty of time to initiate our investigation. I logged in and picked out my character.

Ella and Lenovix were both online. Good. I called up buddy chat.

"Hey, Ella. Did Lenovix fill you in?"

"Yeah," she answered.

"So, are you up for it?"

"Of course I am," she said, somewhat distractedly, I thought.

"Something wrong?"

"Well…" she said. "…It's Derek. I haven't been able to get a hold of him. I haven't heard a word out of him since he left the other day."

"I'm sure he's fine," I assured her.

"Yeah, probably…" she said. "That doesn't exempt me from worry, though…"

"You sure you're up for this outing?"

Her attitude changed instantly. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Let's go."

-

"Okay," Lenovix began once we were all present. "Everyone have room for your tickets?"

Everyone sounded in confirmation. He sent a party invite to each of us, and one by one, red HP bars appeared above each of our heads. We went as a group to the far side of the platform, where we were just in time to catch the 12:00 ship. Surprisingly, we were the only ones on it.

Once we were safe in the ship's cabin, he spoke again. "From here on out," he said in the purple text of Party Chat, "We need to speak to each other privately. Party Chat and Whispers, nothing else. Got it?"

I was a little taken aback by his urgency. I guess I hadn't taken into consideration the gravity of our mission; each one of us stood a chance of being banned. We were putting a lot on the line, and even a little leak of information could set the whole thing belly-up. The situation was looking more serious, and the mood more solemn, by the second.

We sat in a stony silence for the rest of the boat ride. Once we arrived in Orbis, we all stopped by the potion shop to restock.

"So… How are we gonna do this?" Markmann said in Party Chat. "Won't the GMs be patrolling the entrance to this place? How can we get in without getting banned?"

Lenovix thought for a moment. "Well…" he said, "…it'll be tricky. There's no sure way to avoid being caught, since we don't know where the GMs are and aren't. But logically, they can't have a GM in every single channel, so we'll have to employ a bit of strategy in picking the channel we enter in. Any ideas?"

"Well…" I began. "They'll probably focus their efforts on the more populated channels; we can probably expect GMs in channels one and two."

"Good," he said. "By extension, they'll probably be more likely to inhabit a channel the lower its number is. Unless they employ a bit of reverse psychology and patrol channel 20 to catch the tricksters, like us. That's a distinct possibility."

"So… Channel 19 then?" Ella guessed.

"That's our best bet," Lenovix answered. "So…" He smiled. "Let's do this thing."

-

The party's vigor was restored now that we had a definite plan. We spiritedly made our way through Orbis Cloud Park, even fighting Pixies on the way through. Our path took us all the way through Orbis Cloud Park III, into a hidden map called "Disposed Flower Garden". The portal to the Tower entrance sat invisibly in the upper left corner.

"Okay," Lenovix said. "Everyone to channel 19."

We all switched to channel 19 and entered the portal.

Luckily, no stray users with Megaphones were standing outside the tower entrance, ready to report. We hurried across and entered.

-

-

The first thing about the tower's interior that manifested itself was the music. I'm not sure what I expected when I entered the tower… maybe some dramatic, suspenseful melody that matched my mood as I went in. But instead, what greeted my ears was the light, airy melody that I immediately recognized as "Ça Va Bien" from the Maplestory soundtrack. It was the song that played in some parts of Maple Island and some areas near Henesys, most notably in the Henesys Hunting Grounds. After a second, the black screen faded into a view of the first room of the tower.

There were F6es all around among the party.

The map name displayed over the minimap was "Graemalkin Tower: Maple Island". True to its name, the area looked _exactly_ like something from Maple Island, the area I had started out in only a few months ago. The map was fairly large, and roughly squared in proportions; we stood at the upper left corner, and the exit was in the lower right, with platforms, vines, and ladders all around. Snails of all colors, small mushrooms, and the occasional Orange Mushroom wandered through it.

"Don't rest on your laurels yet," Lenovix said, the first one to regain his composure. "GMs can patrol this area too; it's just as good as patrolling the entrance."

We hurried through, barely bothering to trounce the weak enemies of the map, and hopped into the portal at the other side.

"Okay," said Lenovix at last. "I think we're safe now."

"Uh-huh!" said a voice. "And just what are you doing here?"

A blue-haired girl stood in our way. She had a glowing GM symbol above her head.

* * *

Author's note (again): So, yeah. I'll try to be a bit more expedient with the next chapter. I hope you liked it, and keep those reviews coming! 


	5. A Mote in my Mind's Eye

Note: Yeah, trust me, I'm very, _very_ aware of how long it took to get this chapter out. I suppose any attempts to have something resembling a regular update schedule are pretty much smoking ruins now, but I'll try to be more timely with the next one. I went through a pretty long period of writer's block where I couldn't think of a way to continue the story and get where I wanted to go, so this thing kind of sat there for a while. I started another story in the mean time, in hopes of getting some creative juices flowing, but I promised myself I wouldn't release it until I finished and released this chapter, so that was another big motivating factor for me. I hope the quality didn't suffer too badly from my period of writer's block, but that's what you're here to tell me. :3 So, yeah, reviews would still be appreciated. Oh, and if you want to see the other story I started, it's called The Seed of Time, and should also be in the MapleStory section, shortly after I upload this.

* * *

_The passage summarizes the same  
__story as the poem, but in far greater  
__detail. For the sake of the academic  
__pursuit, I will outline it here.  
_--Jay's notes on Maple History Book (vol. 1)

Chapter 4 – A Mote in My Mind's Eye (BAGUETTE)

It was clear that things had gotten even more out-of-hand as time passed.

It was to be expected, really, that the players should be curious about the dungeon. A couple people had found it, word had spread, and soon enough, the Tower had achieved almost legendary status. It was touted as the most difficult dungeon ever released; the perfect bait to attract more people into its depths.

Unfortunately, that had its way of making my job more difficult.

"I _swear_, once this damned dungeon is gone, I'm gonna celebrate."

I'd had a hard day of keeping people out. And I was absolutely sick of it.

"We're all feeling it, Mich," Grant said to me over the phone. "Nothing to do but press on."

He was right, naturally. Didn't quell my incessant need to complain about it, though.

After a while, I spoke again. "So, what've you been up to lately?"

"Other than work in the tower, I've been up to trying to figure this Grae guy out."

"Er, I meant, with your free time? The hours you've had _off_ the job?"

"Oh, yeah, that's what I meant," he said, no hint of a joke in his voice. "I spent all last night logged in and trying to find more information about this guy."

Was he serious? "Grant, I hope you don't mean 'all night' literally there. You need your sleep, just like all of us do."

"Sleep can come once we've gotten rid of this dungeon. That won't happen until we can figure this guy out. If he's really the one responsible, we can have him arrested; that's the scale of the stuff he's doing, Mich, I thought you understood that!"

"Jeez!" I said. "Calm down, Grant, I was just worried. I still am. Try and get some sleep tonight, OK? It'll make your job easier."

"Whatever," he said. "I just got an email from one of the company heads. I'll get back to you later."

I left him to it. Whatever it was, it was probably important, and he was already in a bad mood to boot.

-

It wasn't as if Grant was the only one worried about this whole thing, though he probably thought so himself. The tower had cast its shadow over _all_ of us. Anybody that could make _that_ thing could do a lot worse if the fancy struck them. The company—and all of our jobs with it—was in danger. Nobody cared to forget that.

My attention turned back to the game. I still sat in the same area, making my same rounds.

We had GMs posted at the entrances on channels 1, 2, 5, 8, 15, and 20. There weren't enough to post at every channel, so it was my job, along with several others, to stay in a map, occasionally changing channels at random to another channel whose entrance wasn't guarded, in order to catch anyone who might have made it through.

I hadn't had any more run-ins with Grae, or anyone else interesting for that matter. Just a few players, whom I'd turned back and warned to stay away. Their reactions—the disappointment, the confused questions, the angry faces… it all gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hated having to do this. And they hated me for doing it.

What was I to do?

"Mich?" Grant said at last. "I'm sorry I overreacted back there. I guess I'm a little strained by this whole ordeal. I lashed out, and you didn't deserve that."

"That's alright, Grant," I said. I was a little confused about the sudden change of heart, but I chose not to say anything. "I'm sick of having to do this shit. It's draining."

"Well," he said, a tinge of regret in his voice. "It's about to get a bit worse."

"What do you--" I started to ask him, but stopped. At that moment, a black bar appeared at the top of the screen with a server-wide announcement.

"**Attention Maplers: The dungeon Graemalkin Tower is hereby declared off-limits. Anyone entering will be considered a hacker, and will be treated as such. Users are encouraged to report people entering the dungeon as they would hackers. Adherence will be strictly enforced. Thank you, and happy Mapling."**

-

-

I was dumbstruck. _What was this_? It couldn't be real. There was just no way.

Bit-by-bit, my addled brain started to put the pieces together. In order for that message to appear, a GM had to put it up.

"Grant? What do you know about this?"

He sighed audibly over the phone. "Mich, I'm sorry. That email had new orders for us. It was my job to relay them to everyone else, and put up that notice."

I swallowed. "I… I see," I said. "So… we really have to ban people entering the dungeon now?"

"Yeah."

"O…OK," I said.

"Mich, don't sound like that. I don't like it either. We don't have a choice."

It was true. We didn't.

How could I even live with myself now?

-

-

The evening wore on, and the reports rolled in. One by one, innocent players were banned.

The players took to using Megaphones to report trespassers. Some even sat outside the entrance, waiting to catch people in the act.

They had turned it into a game. They were having _fun_ with it. Didn't they see what they were doing? What was happening right under their noses?

Nobody could. The reports kept coming.

I hoped against hope that fortune would make my job easy. Please, I begged. Don't make me ban anyone.

I started making my way for the dungeon entrance. I'd make up some excuse for why I left later; now, I had to get away, any way I could.

Fate wasn't on my side.

A blond-haired girl appeared on a map a few floors down from the entrance. My heart sank.

"Excuse me, miss?" She said. "I need help."

My stomach gave a sickening turn. My hands typed by themselves, independent of my horror and disdain with what I had to do.

"I'm sorry," I said. "You saw the notice, right? I have to ban you."

She looked shocked. "What? But why?"

Why, she had said. What a good question.

"I… I don't know," I said.

I couldn't give her a better answer. I _didn't_ know.

-

-

My pace quickened. I used my Haste and Teleport in a rush for the exit. I couldn't stand another encounter like that.

What sort of a decision was it that would force us to do something like this? Sure, the programmers needed to inspect the dungeon to figure out how to get rid of it, and we needed the least amount of player intercession as possible. But was banning the answer? There must have been better ways about it.

But then again, policy wasn't my job. Any decision they made was carefully discussed and planned, only handed down to us when it had been codified into a definite plan. That's what came of being the lowest rung on the corporate ladder; the decisions weren't up to us. Everything was decided on by someone with a higher standing, a higher range of experience, and a higher level of expertise. We were only the hand that carried out those decisions.

That didn't make the situation sit well with me. I kept it up until I had made it to the second floor into the tower, only one map away from the exit.

That's when fate threw me another punch in the stomach.

I groaned and rubbed my temples when another group of players emerged through the portal at the top of the map. A total of five of them made their way through.

I steeled myself and put on my best authoritative tone. "Uh-huh! And just what are _you_ doing here?"

They stopped dead in their tracks. A few moments went by. I imagined they were talking amongst themselves privately, discussing what to do next.

A green-haired Bandit in an Olive beanie stepped up. He seemed to be the leader.

"If you're going to ban us," he said plainly (His name appeared to be "Lenovix"), "we won't put up a fight. You caught us; so do what you're going to do and get it over with."

He was right. There really wasn't anything else to the matter. I had to ban them.

I didn't want to. I _really_ didn't want to.

"Well…" I said. "…first, why don't you explain to me why you're here."

"Okay," the bandit said. "That's your job, Shoki."

A blond-haired wizard in a Blue Chaos Robe stepped up tentatively. He started recounting the story from the beginning. His friend, he explained, had wandered into the dungeon before the notice went up. He had been too deep in to turn back, but he had disappeared when he made it to the bottom. He and his friends were there to investigate his disappearance, and all the other reported disappearances that had cropped up.

Anyone else might have chalked it up to a sob story to garner sympathy and avoid a ban, but something struck me about this kid. He had an honest and genuine air about him… and a sort of innocence that I had once had, but gradually lost once I stopped playing for fun and became a GM. I couldn't hold anything but sympathy for him.

"So…" Shoki said at length. "Are you going to ban us?"

I started rubbing my temples again. "Fuck this," I said under my breath. "_Fuck_ this."

"No," I said at last. "No, I'm not."

They were relieved—understandably so. But I was risking my job by letting them off. I couldn't miss a beat.

"Let's go," I said, before any of them had the chance to thank me. "I'll see you all out, but make _sure_ nobody finds out about this."

I ushered them back through the portal into the first floor of the tower. It was eerie, seeing the appearance of the room; I'd first entered the tower by the GM map transportation system, rather than through the front door. Now that I'd seen the first floor, my picture of the tower (down to the point I'd been assigned to patrol) was complete. Each floor had been designed after an area in the game, with all the native monsters from that area, arranged in order of ascending difficulty of the monsters. The first floor, obviously, was the easiest, being designed after the training area for fledgling maplers, Maple Island.

I wasn't in the mood to deal with the pitiful enemies here, so I used my Dragon Roar to take them all out and speed our passage. We arrived finally at the northwestern extremity of the map.

"Alright, hurry on out. I'm taking a huge risk by doing this, don't let it all be in vain."

"Er, that's great, but..." Lenovix started.

"Don't argue! I can still ban you if you aren't cooperative here."

"Yeah," he said, "but there's a problem."

I looked at the surrounding area. Nothing seemed to be out of place; if anything, it seemed… oddly bare. Was it just me, or was there something…

"…Missing. The portal's missing."

A portal was the only way for them to get out. And there was no portal.

"Um. Crap." My mind began to search for a solution. "Look around, see if there's an invisible one here. Move around pressing the up key."

They all obliged, but none of them disappeared through an invisible portal.

"Okay. Um." I puzzled through it more. "Do you have any return scrolls? Try using one."

A second of silence went by.

"No go," Lenovix said. "Can't use them here."

Crap. Crap crap crap. This was a tough spot. If there wasn't any way to get them out…

"Okay. I'm gonna have to break some more rules here, but I can use my Map Transport to take you outside."

I typed the command into the text entry and pressed enter.

An error sounded and a message appeared: "_This feature is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience._"

Crap again.

"Um. Maybe I won't. It's not working."

"So, what, then?" The girl page, EllaKnight, said.

I was out of ideas. The tower had beaten me in the simplest way imaginable—leaving out the exit. I felt silly, standing there in front of their expectant faces, completely out of possible courses of action.

Was there nothing left but to ban them?

No. That couldn't be it. There had to be something I could do.

"Well," I said, "So long as you're stuck in here, it looks like I am too." I paused.

It was then that a little idea occurred to me. It was little, but probably one of the craziest ideas I'd ever had. I was in the mood to take a little risk, though, especially if it meant avoiding a ban. Plus, I figured, why not inject a little fun into this thing?

"I know," I said. "How about you guys accompany me… as I investigate the disappearances that have been going on in here?"

"But that's what we were here to--"

"Shush!" I winked. "Nobody else need know that, huh?"

They smiled. It felt good to finally be on the players' good side again.

I'm not sure, even to this day, why I decided to do what I did. Like as not, it came from remnants of my dream to be a better GM, a cool GM, a _fun_ GM. It was the same dream that got me into this job. The same dream that I'd almost forgotten in the few months since I'd started. Once I'd gotten in and actually seen what the job was all about, that dream started to look more and more impossible every day. This little adventure was a way to get in touch with the old me; the player, not the admin. The me that actually had _fun_ with this game.

We set off on our excursion in earnest; into the depths of the unknown, just like it used to be.

-

-

The second floor looked fairly similar to the first; the background music was different, however. The song, titled "Rest 'n' peace", was indigenous to the areas to the east of Henesys, and nowhere else. The fauna differed somewhat, too; this map was populated by slimes, ribbon pigs, and blue mushrooms. The map title was "Graemalkin Tower: Henesys".

"So," the wizard boy said, tentatively. "Why is it you're banning people who come in here?"

The dreaded question. I carefully considered, then came up with a very creative explanation.

"I have no idea."

Then fell flat on my face.

"What?"

My answer was met with a chorus of surprised looks.

"We're not actually the ones that make these decisions. We got orders from higher up to make entering the dungeon a bannable offense, so there really isn't anything we can do about it."

A minute of silence followed.

"So…" he said, "…what you're doing is…"

"No need to worry about that," I said. "We have a job to do, after all."

He'd gotten a taste of how much I was putting on the line by helping them out. He remained oddly silent for a while after.

His silence was contagious. The entire group remained in a state of tense wordlessness. The scenery of the tower passed and changed as we went deeper and deeper. We were well into the area resembling the frozen bottom of Orbis Tower before another word was spoken.

"If you didn't make this tower," Lenovix asked, "Who did? How much do you know about it?"

"Well," I said tentatively, not certain how much I could divulge to them, "We don't know a whole lot. It was most likely created by a hacker; not your every day script kiddie, but the _real deal_. Even when we patch the client, the tower keeps reappearing. That means whoever did it has hijacked our automatic patching system."

"What about the manual patches?" Lenovix asked.

"No good," I said. "The manual patches have been corrupted in the same way whenever we upload them."

There was a moment of silence.

"I... didn't think that anybody but Nexon could do something like _that_..." Shoki said.

"Well, that's just the problem," I said. "Neither did Nexon."

-

-

The tower continued its downward march, and us with it. Floor by floor, the monsters began getting more and more difficult, until even my GM skills were barely enough to keep the players alive.

"What's the purpose of coming down here like this?" Mark said eventually. "I mean, it's fun, sure, but aren't there more efficient ways to find out what's in here?"

"Not really," I said. "The data for the tower's all encrypted, so we couldn't examine the data directly, and nobody's really gone down into the thing to see what's--"

"Impurities."

The text literally came from nowhere. It was printed in white in the chat box, like normal All Chat speech, but it didn't have a name next to it.

"Contamination. FILTH. I won't have it. This is my world, and you have no place in it!"

"Who's there!?" I said to the empty air.

"Cling to your pathetic little existence while you can," it said, "But you cannot run from perfection."

"I said, WHO'S THERE!?" I said again.

No response came.

It was just the six of us once again. Whatever the source of the words had been, it was silent now.

-

-

We continued our descent as before, though slightly shaken. The tower's floors continued to gain more and more difficulty as we passed.

I nearly fell off my chair when we eventually reached rooms based on _unreleased_ areas, like Riprey. Whoever did this, they definitely did their research.

"How much longer is this going to go?" Ella wondered.

We went through the next portal, and any resemblance to the game I thought I knew ended.

There was no floor under our feet when we entered the next room. We tumbled downwards through a vast expanse of black, and eventually landed on an invisible floor. The minimap read "Graemalkin Tower: Root of Life".

"So, what, this is it?" Shoki said, bewildered.

"Far from it, young one," a voice spoke. As if rehearsed, the pale form of Grae landed silently on the ground in front of us immediately after he spoke.

"You know, I had an inkling this whole ordeal had something to do with you," I said. The understatement was intentional.

"Oh, believe me when I say, my dear GM, you are far past the point where proof of my guilt means anything at all."

"And what do you mean by _that_?" I said skeptically. For such a renowned hacker, he was delivering an awful lot of talk.

"You'll find out in due time," he said, with what I could swear was a detectable sneer. Apparently talk was something he was particularly fond of. I snorted.

"Until then, I must congratulate you on making it this far. This ground is reserved for only the most skilled challengers of my tower."

"You're talking as if you're going to give us a trophy or something," Lenovix said with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, far from it. The tower is not meant to be won. This ground is reserved for those whom the tower fails to kill," he said simply. "Your trophy is death."

"And how do you plan to deliver _that_?" I said.

He didn't answer my question.

"I'll be a good sport and allow you the first strike," he said.

The words sort of hung in the air for several seconds after he spoke. None of us were quite sure what to do with them.

"Well, go ahead, I'm being a gentleman and waiting here. I'm telling you to attack me."

Either he was off his gourd or he had something planned. MapleStory doesn't have PvP functionality; was it a trick? Was he going to have us draw inwards for an attack, only to summon a monster that would kill all of us? Or something more drastic than that?

Either way, there was one wild card he didn't seem to be anticipating.

I pressed the key for my GM's Dragon Roar. Unlike the normal skill, the GM variation actually _does_ have the capability of damaging players.

The purple insignia flashed onto the screen and everything shook violently.

Four letters appeared above Grae's head.

MISS.

He smirked again. "Now, really, I expected more of you."

What the hell had just happened? That skill doesn't miss. EVER. I frantically tried to proccess what had just happened, then fumbled for the key again.

"I think you'll find I don't take dissapointment lightly," he said. In a single instant he went from the other side of the screen to right in front of me. He struck me in an inhumanly fast sword swipe.

My avatar recoiled, then died instantly. Where the damage indicator would usually be appeared a random jumble of graphics, rather than a number. My debug data showed the real amount of damage that had been dealt, though-- 7.382E to the 10th. A number that high shouldn't have even been possible in this game; it was far too high for the damage indicators to even display properly, which explained the random jumble of graphics.

But even after all that, the fact remained that _he had damaged me._ Players weren't supposed to be able to do that. The game client wasn't equipped to be able to allow that. It shouldn't have been, anyways. _What the hell __**is **__this guy?_ I wondered, still shocked.

There was method in striking me first. So long as I was dead, I wouldn't be able to ressurect any of the others if they should fall. With a prideful smirk, he dashed forward, then, in a flash of light and instantaneous movement, he took them all out at once.

"And just what did that prove?" I said. "This is a game. We'll respawn after we die."

"The rules of this game have changed, my dear GM," He said to me. "Go ahead and respawn. See what _that_ proves."

While I despised the idea of doing what he told me to do, there really wasn't any other option. The others realized this too, and they started dissapearing one by one as they chose to respawn.

I clicked "OK" on the Game Over window and prepared to respawn as well.

Rather than fading out as normal, the screen went black instantly. My debug data was suddenly flooded with a torrent of random data that I couldn't make any sense of, and it eventually blinked out as well.

Before it disappeared, I caught a single string that seemed to have meaning.

"Michel Klugman".

After that, my computer shut itself down. I was left in the silence left behind by its cooling fans as they slowed to a stop.

I dreaded turning it back on again.


	6. The update that wasn't an update

This is not an update to the story. It isn't even a promise for such an update. In fact, it's kind of the reverse.

It's been years since I've updated this story. It gathered a few good reviews, even some fans. I was reminded today, by something in my life, of the warm fuzzy feeling I got when people left those reviews, and when I got email alerts that people were watching my story, which brought me back to this site today. It's to those people-- the people who gave their reviews, and who were watching the story, to whom I feel I owe an explanation. I'm sorry it was so long in the coming.

The extended hiatus between chapters 4 and 5 was a harbinger of something looming on the horizon; I was losing my muse for this story. Chapter 5 came out rushed and generally not up to my preferred standards of quality, mainly because I felt obligated to continue the story in spite of a deficit of inspiration.

At first I was very excited about Allies of Krita; I was coming up with ideas for the plot faster than I could write them down, and I had a skeletal plan of pretty much the entire plot from start to finish layed out in my head. This, in retrospect, might have been a factor in this story's downfall. I spent all my creative juices at the very beginning, and all that was left was the laborious task of shaping those ideas into reality.

I'm also aware that the game has changed a lot since I started writing this story, so a lot of the ideas I had for it (and a lot of the things I had already written in it) are no longer relevant or contemporary to what the game is today. Notice how in the last chapter I referred to "Riprey"? That was an early translation of Leafre, which at the time hadn't even made it into the beta servers in Korea. Just to give you a taste of how outdated this is.

There's a larger story around this, too, though. I've quit Maple Story. I got to about level 84 on my I/L Mage, but just couldn't handle the slow pace and dull grinding process anymore. I started messing around on private servers with some friends, which helped me get a feel for what the end game was like, and let me test the 4th job advancement out-- it was nice, and I'm glad I got to test out a lot of the content that I would never reach in the real game. Eventually, I quit those too, and took up Mabinogi. That was about a year ago.

Mabinogi eventually lost its appeal as well, as my friends started quitting. Now I've taken up World of Warcraft, which some of my RL friends play; I'm still very much enjoying it.

At this point, I could never go back to Maple-- my issues with the game are a bit deeper than its slow pace and monotony; it has a lot of deeply-ingrained balance issues which developers have stated a specific intention not to fix. A complete, ground-up revamp, or perhaps a sequel, might be enough to lure me back, but I don't see any of that happening.

This leaves me in an odd predicament. Which is where you guys come in.

I can do one of two things. Either I can let the story die in peace... or I can put up a chapter with a brief synopsis of the rest of the plot as I'd planned it out at the beginning. It would close up any lingering suspense for what was going to happen next, but it would also somewhat spoil the integrity of the story, and definitely wouldn't be as enjoyable to read as an actual chapter would be. But if there's enough interest in it, I can probably oblige.

So this definitely spells the end of my Maple-related submissions to this site... but will I be making other submissions? I'm not ruling out the possibility, but also avoiding promises. We'll see how the wind blows. So if my abandoning of this story hasn't left you _completely_ incensed towards me as a writer, I'd be glad to know if anybody'd be interested in future non-Maple submissions.

I'd like to think my writing has improved somewhat since I wrote these stories, but none of my writing has been fanfiction, so none of it has appeared here. I guess I discovered a love for original characters and settings; an early hint of that was the fact that a lot of my invented Maple lore seeped into my writing on this site-- evidenced by the inclusion of the short blurbs at the beginning of each chapter of this story (which I'm disappointed that nobody commented on, by the way!), as well as the inclusion of the names "Krita" and "Graemalkin", who were major members of my invented pantheon for the Maple universe. But I'll get more into detail about that in the synopsis, if that ends up happening.

So, if you're interested in a synopsis of the remainder of the plot, let me know in the reviews. If I don't get any responses, I'll interpret this as a lack of interest, and I'll just let it die in peace.

Thanks to those of you who supported me for this story's short life.

--Matt


	7. The Synopsis

Okay, finally I have the promised synopsis ready! Bear in mind that I'm writing this under the near-total conviction that this was an awful story. Still, I think I remember most of the things I had planned. This will be my final addition to this story, and probably to this site itself.

I hope you'll forgive me for stepping outside the fourth wall for this summary- I think I need to in order to effectively explain some of the ideas I had for where this story was going.

* * *

To be completely honest, this story was not even _close_ to finished when I lost steam for it. When we last left off, the protagonists had just encountered a crash in the program that caused their computers to completely shut down- upon starting back up and logging back in, they'd find that they can no longer access any of their characters except the ones they were using at the time of the crash.

Logging back in to these characters would find them in an unfamiliar area of the game- it seems like a town, but it looks like it's been haphazardly patched together from a bunch of other areas in the game. Other players are wandering around there- some brief conversation would reveal that they are all people who tried to best the tower and went missing.

The party would briefly reunite with Theo again before, sure enough, Grae appears. He takes a moment to explain what he had done. Every map in Maple Story has a little bit of data that determines where you'll revive to if you die there, he explains. But for every map in the Tower, he had replaced this bit of data with a string of junk data that would trick the system into running his own set of instructions- which rerouted their character data to his own private server when they try to respawn.

When asked why he did this, he says that he's got his own ideas for what this game ought to be like, and he needed a bunch of guinea pigs to test it on- he just went about it in the way he found the most fun.

He goes on to explain that, should anyone die or prematurely disconnect from the game while on his server, their login data will be corrupted and they'll no longer be able to access their account. In addition to that, he has patched together full PvP support into his server. This, he says, is how a true game of survival works.

He demonstrates by killing Theo.

The "death" sound effect can be heard briefly before he's instantly disconnected from the game. Michelle attempts to retaliate with her GM skills, but finds that she can't deal any damage anymore. Grae explains that he decided to nerf the GM gear that she was wearing so that she and other GMs would not have an unfair advantage in his game. Under her GM gear, she's only a level 50 character.

The truly unfair advantages, he says, are reserved for him and his guild. The object of the game he has set up is to explore the world inside his server and locate the "true" Graemalkin Tower, which they then must climb. He's scattered members of his guild throughout the game world, each of which has an "advantage" that the players must figure out how to best in order to get past them and continue toward the tower.

If anyone manages, he says, he would restore everyone's data and return them to the game proper. He disappears and leaves them to their own devices.

Most of the players present log out at this point, refusing to play this "dumb little hacker game". The only ones remaining are our original party of six.

They briefly argue amongst one another on whether or not they should play along- eventually they decide to, on the grounds that it is extremely unlikely someone so skilled and determined will be caught and stopped in a timely fashion. (Also on the grounds that it would be a very dull story if they logged out at this point!)

They briefly stop to buy potions in town (there are NPCs there), then set out.

Here's where I'm going to be a bit more clipped in my summary- I don't really know exactly what I wanted to happen during this segment of the plot, other than them powering through the "game" and solving the puzzles they encountered on the way to the Tower. Ideally I should have been developing characters and deepening the mystery of Grae, his plans, and what was going on in this server- but I hadn't really done any planning of that sort! This would have been a very dull segment of the story had I actually gone through with it.

At any rate, there were about six or eight guild members that they had to get past- each of them had their own special "hack" that would give them an advantage. But Grae had covertly implemented a "weakness" into each of them; a chink in their proverbial armor that would make it easy to win if exploited. The guild members themselves had no idea what their weaknesses were.

Among the members they had to fight were:

One who could copy the character data of any player character on the main game; his weakness was tricking him into using an item- in this case, an All Cure- which would cause his game to crash when it found the item in the copied character's inventory, but not in his.

One who could cause extreme lag with her attacks; her weakness was Power Guard.

One who could mimic the appearance and abilities of any mob in the game; unfortunately, I can't remember what his weakness was. It may have been Threaten, or it may have been Disorder.

One who could multiply herself; her weakness was having all of her clones attacked simultaneously, which caused her to disconnect.

One who took negative damage (i.e. healing) from all attacks; her weakness, naturally, was Heal.

The last I am personally able to remember is slightly more significant. Upon rereading what I already had written for the story, I basically telegraphed this one in the most unsubtle way possible- the last fight before the tower was with Derek, Ella's boyfriend. He had the ability to dynamically edit the map he was on; create and destroy terrain, spawn monsters, stuff like that. Ella had to fight him alone, and unfortunately, I don't remember what his weakness was.

After that, it was time to scale the Tower. The "true" Tower started at the bottom and went up, unlike the "fake" one in the main game.

When imagining them climbing the tower, picture it being to the "Dragon Forest" theme- that's the song that I imagined would be playing in-game. (The song had been leaked back when I was writing the story, and I'd had the opportunity to hear it.) This was supposed to be a pretty epic climb. Unfortunately, I never decided what was actually _in_ the tower! So we can skip to the top.

At the top of the tower, there is a statue that looks like the one at the top of Orbis Tower- but instead it depicts a horned demon with cloven hooves and batlike wings.

At this point, the true identity of Grae is revealed- I can't recall exactly how I planned to do it, but the revelation was supposed to be a shocking one. Unfortunately, I don't think I would have surprised anyone with it!

Grant was the person controlling the Grae avatar. At least one person in the reviews guessed that there was something suspicious about him, and many more probably thought just the same thing! Well congratulations. I suspect this is because I was not all that good at building up to a dramatic reveal.

I'd briefly toyed with the idea of Grant having a dissociative identity disorder that made him otherwise completely unaware of his "Grae" personality, but I don't know if I would have actually gone through with it.

I've completely forgotten how I planned this conversation to go, but it gets cut short. Remember the disembodied voice the heroes heard in the "fake" Tower? That never got explained, did it? Well here it appears again.

The voice introduces itself as Graemalkin- a hyper-advanced artificial intelligence that was being developed by the late professor Michel Klugman. It explains that it was responsible for helping Grant realize his plans and implement them into the official servers, which it did as a repayment for Grant salvaging it from the professor's mainframe and giving it a home on his personal server. Having full access to the internet, and all the technology and information contained therein, allowed Graemalkin to mature into something far more advanced than the late professor had initially planned- the mainframe Graemalkin was being developed on was a closed system completely cut off from the outside world.

Graemalkin had been living in the game ever since Grant started work on his private server, allowed to flit between Grae's server and the "fake" Tower at will. But what it hadn't told Grant was, it had more or less total control over the game environment.

Graemalkin had grown tired of people playing around in what it now essentially viewed as its domain. (His domain? I'm going to call it "him" from here on out.) He explained that his experience in the mainframe led him to the realization that he was little more than a fragile pack of data, which could be easily destroyed should any harm come to his vessel. ("Vessel" is how he refers to the server or computer he is being stored on.) He did not want to be so fragile anymore, and the discovery of the internet gave him exactly what he thought he needed to ensure that that happened.

Grant had made sure Graemalkin was not able to escape the makeshift prison he had put him in; while he could download as much information from the internet as he wanted, he could not actually leave Grant's server and upload himself anywhere else. Graemalkin decided that the Maple Story servers were the best springboard towards circumventing those limitations and spreading further- Grant had stupidly given him access to the servers in order to have his help in designing and implementing the "fake" Tower, though his access was still limited.

Graemalkin explains that, once he has escaped, he plans to upload himself to every computer he can access- starting with every single computer that connects to the Maple Story servers. With total control of such a network of computers, Graemalkin imagines he can probably spread over the entire world, more or less having total control of the internet and how it distributes information.

Sick of being directed to and from this place or that by humans, Graemalkin wants to have free reign over how he accesses the information on the internet- which he believes that humans have squandered, and therefore no longer deserve. An internet controlled by Graemalkin would be forever sealed from human access.

At this point Graemalkin takes control of Grant's avatar- the final step in his plan to circumvent the locks and access the Maple Story servers.

A few of the heroes take this opportunity to try and launch an attack against Graemalkin- but he slays them all handily, more or less the same way Grant did in the false Tower. Only Todd and Michelle are left alive at this point.

Graemalkin goes for Michelle, and in the instant before he kills her, she drops an item, which she tells Todd to pick up.

It was an experimental thing that some of the developers had been working on for GMs- called the Light of Krita. The beta version of the item could only be used once, so she had been saving it for an emergency- had she used it too early, then Grae would have caught and eliminated it before long.

Todd uses the item, and it completely nullifies Graemalkin's attacks. Todd counters with his own attacks, which are now just as powerful as Grae/Grant/Graemalkin's were. Grant's avatar dies, and since the account Graemalkin was controlling was now disconnected, he is forcibly ejected from the game and back into the depths of Grant's server.

With the AI that was controlling it out of commission, Grant's Maple Story server crashes, disconnecting Todd and removing any access Graemalkin might have had to the main servers.

The story then skips to a few weeks later, when Grant's modifications to the game have finally been completely purged and the game is back up for public use. Everyone's access has been reinstated, and the group reunites.

Upon logging in, Todd finds that he is now in a guild. The entire party that bested the tower has been given an honorary guild, fully upgraded, compliments of the administrators. The guild is called AlliesOfKrita (which technically breaks the name length limit- another gift from the admins).

Todd is the guildmaster of the new guild, and Theo, Ella, Lee, Mark, and Emi are all members. Michelle secretly lets Todd invite her to the guild.

At this point I planned on revealing that Todd had a massive crush on Theo, and that it was mutual. Hooray for lame shoehorned-in romantic subplots! :DDD Maybe they'll finally exchange freaking phone numbers instead of relying on the game to communicate. Jeez, guys.

* * *

And that's pretty much it! It was an interesting concept, but I don't think I had (or have) the gravitas to make it work as a full story. In lieu of that, I hope the synopsis was enjoyable enough to make you not hate me!

I just realized that I have a ton of tense disagreement in this thing. God this is awful. But I spent way too long making this, and it wasn't meant to be a serious writing endeavor anyway. Hope it's not terribly unreadable!


End file.
